Field of Invention
Various exemplary embodiments of the present invention relate generally to an electronic device and, more particularly, to a memory controller, an operating method thereof, and a computing system including the same.
Description of Related Art
Semiconductor memory devices are memory devices composed of semiconductor materials such as silicon (Si), germanium (Ge), gallium arsenide (GaAs), indium phosphide (InP), and the like. Semiconductor memory devices are classified into volatile memory devices and nonvolatile memory devices.
Volatile memory devices lose stored data when their power supply is interrupted. Volatile memory devices include static random access memory (SRAM), dynamic RAM (DRAM), synchronous DRAM (SDRAM), etc. In contrast, nonvolatile memory devices retain stored data even when their power supply is interrupted. Nonvolatile memory devices include read only memory (ROM), programmable ROM (PROM), erasable programmable ROM (EPROM), electrically erasable programmable ROM (EEPROM), flash memory, phase-change RAM (PRAM), magnetoresistive RAM (MRAM), resistive RAM (RRAM), ferroelectric RAM (FRAM), etc. Flash memories are classified into NOR type and NAND type.
A semiconductor device may include a nonvolatile memory device and a memory controller for controlling the nonvolatile memory device. The semiconductor device may be coupled to an external host and transfer data to and from the host. For example, the semiconductor device may provide data stored in the nonvolatile memory device to the host and, in response to a request from the host, the semiconductor device may write data to the nonvolatile memory device.
The semiconductor device may access a certain area of memory included in the host. The semiconductor device and the host may be configured in a unified memory architecture (UMA). Since some storage space of the host memory is allocated to and used by the semiconductor device, performance of the semiconductor device may be improved. However, since data related to the semiconductor device is stored in the host memory, security issues may arise for data stored in the host memory.